U-11 Unlimited hydroplane race team to Detroit River: We got ya'

DETROIT – The Detroit River, swift and relentless, is one of the more treacherous race courses on the H1 Unlimited Hydroplane circuit.

Known for chewing up boats and challenging drivers, the river wins more than its share of battles against man and machine.

Shannon Raney knows well the power and the potential of the water that flows between Detroit and Windsor.

That’s why Raney, co-owner and team manager for the U-11 Peters & May, watched first with trepidation, and then satisfaction, as Tom Thompson drove the boat through its first test laps in preparation for the DYC Detroit APBA Gold Cup.

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“We got ya,” Raney allowed herself to say to the river. “You got us before, and we came back and got ya.”

The boat Thompson drives this weekend, the one he’ll try to put in the Gold Cup final Sunday, crashed into the Roostertail banquet center seawall with JW Myers at the controls during the 2010 Gold Cup.

But when Thompson was involved in a crash in the H1 Unlimited season opener in Doha, Qatar, in February, Unlimited Racing Group, started by Shannon Raney and her husband, Scott, in 2011, needed a different craft.

Scott Raney, the crew chief during Jean Theoret’s run to the 2006 Gold Cup, always felt a deep attachment to the boat that wrecked in Detroit in 2010, his wife said.

On that fateful day, Myers’ boat was the U-37 of Schumacher Racing, for which the Raneys worked.

Schumacher Racing had purchased the boat in the mid-2000s, and Scott Raney painstakingly got the craft race ready.

“I often joked with my husband that he loved that boat much more than me,” Shannon Raney said.

The Raneys, who are based in Edmonds, Wash., bought the boat, or what was left of it, from the U-37 team upon their return from Doha in mid-February.

The boat’s right sponson was damaged. The left sponson was missing.

“Basically, from behind the cockpit back was all we had,” Shannon Raney said. “We spent a lot of time this year rebuilding it.”

Work on the boat began in February.

It was completed on May 27, in time for the H1 Unlimited race in that began four days later in Sacramento.

“That’s a short period of time for a lot of work,” Shannon Raney said.

One day, Shannon counted the number of folks who helped work on the boat.

She came up with 46 names.

“There was always somebody in the shop,” she said.

Some of the helpers were members of other race teams.

“This is a great community,” she said. “It really is.”

Everyone who worked on the boat did so “without question, without hesitation,” Thompson said.

“I can’t thank them enough,” the driver said.

Thompson and the U-11 made the final at Sacramento.

“We were thrilled with the weekend,” Shannon Raney said.

Added Thompson, “We saw a lot of promise.”

But the experience in California didn’t compare with bringing the rebuilt boat back to Detroit.

Raney stood on the seawall in the pits, inches from the water, as Thompson tested the U-11 on a shimmering Detroit River on Friday.

“It was very hard to watch,” she said, “because the last time that boat was on the water here, it crashed.

“This is a very big comeback for this boat. To bring it out and run it on the Detroit River is a big moment for us.”

When Thompson navigated the tight “Roostertail turn” for the first time, and then headed back up the front straightaway, Raney exhaled.

“I relaxed and watched it go,” she said.

Thompson finished second in both of his heat races Saturday, scoring 600 points to go with the 40 he posted in qualifying Friday.

He’s second to Jimmy Shane, whose U-5 has 880 points, going into the final day of Gold Cup racing.